How to do mindfulness and meditation

In fact, it is not as mysterious as everyone thinks. The core is to deliberately anchor your attention on the real experience of the moment, without judging the thoughts that arise. There is no need to pursue some mysterious state of "empty mind", and there is no need to wear plain clothes and sit cross-legged on a futon.

It's interesting to say that when I first started meditating, the first pitfall I ran into was that I believed what the Internet said about "you must clear your mind." I set an alarm for 10 minutes and sat there. My mind was filled with all the work messages I had not answered in the morning and the tomato and egg noodles I had to cook in the evening. The more I forced myself to stop thinking about it, the more irritated I became. In the end, I almost threw my phone away, and I felt that I was not born to practice this. Later, I followed a friend from the clinical psychology department of the hospital to do mindfulness training based on MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy), and I realized that mind wandering is the normal state of the brain. Every time you find yourself drifting away and gently bringing your attention back, that is the core practice of mindfulness meditation. To put it bluntly, when you do shoulder exercises, it is the same as lifting dumbbells, putting them down and lifting them up again. You cannot be required to hold the dumbbells and not move for it to be considered a practice, right?

The practice standards for meditation are quite controversial nowadays. One group insists that formal practice must be done: fixed time, abdominal breathing, cross-legged or sitting upright, for at least 20 minutes each time, otherwise the training effect will not be achieved.； The other group believes that daily fragmented awareness is enough. Feeling the strength of the soles of your feet against the ground when waiting for the elevator, feeling the temperature of the water flowing through your throat when drinking water, stopping for one second to touch the rise and fall of your chest when you are arguing, these are all considered mindfulness. I have tried both modes myself. When I was rushing for a project last year, I even had to squeeze in the time to wash my face. I couldn't spare 20 minutes to sit still. I just paused for 3 seconds every time when I went to drink tea and felt the temperature of the ceramic cup in the palm of my hand. With such fragmentary practice, during that time, I didn't get as hairy as I did before when I was working on a project. Even my subordinates asked me if I secretly took a vacation. Later, when I had free time, I would sit on the head of the bed for 15 minutes every day before going to bed, and follow the audio to anchor my attention on my breathing. I can indeed feel more clearly that sometimes when emotions come up, before I have time to lose my temper, I first notice "Oh, I am a little angry now", which is equivalent to having more room for emotional braking than before.

Of course, many people say that mindfulness meditation is an IQ tax. I have a friend who practiced it twice and found it useless, so he turned around and blocked all related content. In fact, everyone’s expectations are essentially wrong. It is not a panacea that can eliminate all worries, it is just a muscle training for attention. You cannot go to the gym twice to develop your waistline, and naturally don’t expect to meditate twice and you will no longer be anxious.

If you really want to get started, you don’t need to sign up for those spiritual classes that cost thousands of dollars. Right now, you sit in a comfortable position. You don’t have to straighten your back or cross your legs. Just focus on the tip of your nose and feel that the air is cool when you breathe it in and warm when you breathe it out. If your mind wanders, gently pull it back. Even if you can only hold on for 1 minute the first time, you have already achieved mindfulness and meditation.